Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a musical family in the heavily forested and rural landscape of Thüringerwald. A sacred heartland of Germany, the woodlands of Thuringia reached the small towns and villages of Sebastian’s youth; Eisenach, Ohrdruf and Mühlhausen. To the Thuringians, the forest wilderness retained a powerful aura and its sylvan myths served as inspiration to German poets for centuries to come. It was also the heart of Lutheranism where churches roared with hymns and church bells rang to ward off threats emanating from the forest or the devil. In this isolated cultural world, Bach received his earliest and most significant musical and spiritual influences. Under the guidance of his elders, Sebastian’s prodigious talent began to flourish and his musical sensibilities developed as he discovered composers such as Buxtehude, Pachelbel and Reincken on a remarkable musical journey.

Under the luminescence of sparkling chandeliers, ceilings covered with gold filigree and a profusion of glittering ornaments, Parisian music rooms provided a perfect backdrop for the effervescent and graceful music of French baroque composers. It was the age of Chardin, Boucher, Watteau and Fragonard whose paintings captured tiny moments of daily life and the faces of perfumed society. Composers took this painterly approach in their sonatas and chamber works, giving them fanciful titles and evoking the essence of a particular person or moment in time. Through the realistic musical imagery of Marais we experience the horror of an 18th-century medical procedure while Leclair and Guillemain delight the ear with enchanting music that is spectacularly ornate and decorative. In Rameau’s miniature portraits for harpsichord and accompanying instruments, we meet the King of Persia, Kouli Khan and also learn about the mystery of a ‘golden’ viol’ created expressly for the composer’s music.

Franz Joseph Haydn’s colorful diaries recount the challenges of traveling from Eszterháza to London and the sensation that ensued upon his arrival in England in 1791. “The sea crossing was terrible and the journey to London was even worse.” On this journey, he had met with Beethoven in Bonn and once Haydn arrived in London he was warmly welcomed as a celebrity. In an era when music for private salon concerts was very stylish, Haydn’s piano trios had tremendous appeal. Although the venues might have been small, the piano writing in the trios is wide-ranging and full of virtuosity, surprises and humor. In London, Haydn became inspired by instruments of English manufacture, particularly the pianos of John Broadwood which are ideally suited for his music.